UFO Surprises

Published23 October 2014

Maybe you are a “good” quilter/crafter and only work on one or two projects at a time until you see them through to the end before you begin another. Me? Not so much. Not that I’m going to label myself a “bad” quilter or ADD because of my long, long list of quilting projects. [I do try to limit the number to no more than two dozen ongoing projects. LOL] The “thing” for me [and I haven’t come up with a name for this “thing”] is that I thoroughly enjoy the excitement of beginning a new project more so than the thrill of finishing it. Add to that my complete lack of guilt over my unfinished projects and maybe you can see why I’m up to 22 projects.

The “thing” is, I am contemplating three new projects and that would put me over my limit. [Using up stash creates more room for long-standing project storage, right?] A true dilemma. I decided I needed to finish up four long-standing quilts that are in various states of doneness and a carry-on bag that would count as project number five. So if I subtract the finished projects and then add in the three new projects, I’m below my previous number of ongoing projects. [Works for me!] Two of those long-standing quilts bring me to the topic of this post…

You know how when you get back to a UFO long-standing project that’s been languishing in a bag at the bottom of a pile clear plastic project container in a closet in your sewing room, there’s always that surprising moment when you remember exactly WHY this project became a UFO? I hate those moments.

This is an EQ rendition of the scrappy plaid quilt that I started who knows when. When I dragged this project out of the armoire where my UFOs long-standing projects [LSPs?] are stored, I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t finished sewing the quilt top together. [In case you are wondering, I’m resisting using “UFOs” because of the comment spam I get about UFOs—the kind spotted in the night sky—whenever I post something about unfinished projects. I think because I live so close to Area 51, I get double the spam. And I’m sure I just upped the ante with the Area 51 mention…] I pulled out nine completed strips from the project bag—six folded together and the remaining three folded together. This fact didn’t jog anything in my conscious memory. It should have.

I spent part of the day listening to a Harry Potter audiobook while unsewing and resewing part of this project. That jogged a vague memory of the last time I worked on this quilt. I was housesitting for a couple that likes to go to Mardi Gras every year. Another quilter, but her design wall wasn’t big enough to pin up the strips. I started sewing the strips together anyway and noticed something was off so I laid them all out on a bed and discovered my errors. At the time, I unsewed the strips I had sewn together but didn’t want to take the time to fix the three bad strips I discovered. I carefully folded everything up—six strips in one pile and the three bad strips in another—with no note as to why I was folding the strips in that way—potentially compounding my erroneous ways.

My subconscious memory was looking out for me though. This time I decided to put the strips up on the design wall even though it’s currently covered with the homeowner’s four ongoing projects. That was when I discovered rediscovered there was an issue with three of the strips. Now the strips are resewn and waiting to be ironed. I can put this top together and add it to the “to be quilted” pile. One project down, four more to go.